Thursday, February 12, 2009

On suffering

So, I had read this New York Times article last week and was unsure about how to put my feelings about it into words.

Ezra does better:
The New York Times article on how hard it will be for senior executives to live in New York on $500,000 is the sort of thing that makes me want to burn this rotted society to the ground and salt the earth atop which it once stood.
Yeah, that's about right.

2 comments:

The Honourable Husband said...

As one who lived a tad east of Third Avenue intil a couple of years ago, I was shocked at the self-righteousness of the New York elite.

They come to accept their priveleges as a right. And look at you, in shock, when you suggest that there may be other standards by which to live life, apart from those of the Upper East Side.

I once had to endure a UES dentist who spent our entire consultation bagging the Upper West Side, where the teachers, Columbia academics, working artists and writers, and the socially mobile non-whites live in NYC. Most of his objections seemed to have been based on the fact that the UWS didn't cost enough. Pity my mouth was full of gauze, or I would have given him a piece of my mind.

And, Ms. Bushnell, a life without "appurtenances" and 400 pairs of shoes cna be a worthy one, perhaps even more worthy than yours.

JCWood said...

Many thanks for your perspective, hb8.

I, too, was sickened by the privilege mentality. Though I shouldn't be surprised, having studied previous aristocracies.

But this might be a bit personal: part of my family's roots lie in Queens.

What makes a worthy life? 400 pairs of shoes? Probably not.